Problem: The children want to take the train again, for our cars and trucks and things that go week. But, the train really doesn't take us anywhere of interest for the under-5 set.
Solution: Reading Terminal Market for snacktime.
And so we took the 9:51 train to Center City, made 11 stops, exited at Market East, took the elevator to street level, and crossed the street to Reading Terminal Market.
After a very brief browsing of the tasty treats for sale (including: chocolate rubber ducks), the kids settled on a freshly baked black-and-white cookie and a bottle of milk. Reading Terminal may be one of three places in the country where we could buy whole, unpasteurized, unhomogonized milk to wash down our cookies. Lucky us!
Post-snack we browsed some more, watching the lobsters in the tank, checking out the different sizes of shrimp, and sniffing all sorts of herbs at the herbal apothecary.
We took the 11:37 train back and arrived at the train station twenty minutes early. It was a very quick trip, but it satisfied the desire to ride the train! without any meltdowns.
Of note:
- I realized five minutes after Kevin pulled away for Bryn Mawr that I'd left a few essential items (baby carrier, water bottles) in the car. Oops. Luckily, Thomas was willing to ride in the umbrella stroller.
- Lucy noticed right away that the elevator at the train station smelled like pee. Peter hypothesized it was because a load of trash had gone in before we did. I allowed them to believe this, and for our return trip, they ran to the "pee-pee elevator!" and plugged their noses.
- I tried to save a bit of the cookie for Kevin, but the children mounted a 1-2 attack and demanded we eat it. "It might get broken in our bag," Peter suggested persuasively. Lucy offered the less elegant but more emotional argument "MORE COOKIE!!!!!!!!" I could find fault in neither's logic, so we ate Kevin's portion of the cookie.
- The conductor offered his hand to help Lucy off the train when we arrived at Swarthmore. She recoiled a bit from him before raising up her hand to give him - what else? - a high five. Only, it certainly looked as though she was about to hit him.
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